The Detroit Tigers remain atop Box-Toppers team rankings for the third straight week—even though there are three teams with better records.
Meanwhile, the Houston Astros made a giant leap into the top 10, rising from 15th place to second after picking up 8.2 Box-Toppers points over the week.
Top 10 teams
Here are Box-Toppers' Top 10 teams, through the games of Thursday, April 30. The column BTP shows the number of Box-Toppers points players on the team have accumulated so far this season. The column BTP/wk shows have many points teams have accumulated in the past week.4/30 |
Teams |
BTP |
BTP /wk |
Last wk rank |
| 1 | Tigers | 17.6 | 2.5 | 1 |
| 2 | Astros | 17.4 | 8.2 | 15 |
| 3 | Cardinals | 17.2 | 5.0 | 6 |
| 4 | Mets | 16.9 | 2.0 | 2 |
| 5 | Reds | 16.8 | 4.5 | 5 |
| 6 | Royals | 16.5 | 3.5 | 3 |
| 7 | Yankees | 15.7 | 4.7 | 10 |
| 8 | Cubs | 15.5 | 5.5 | 11 |
| 9 | Dodgers | 15.5 | 4.0 | 7 |
| 10 | Pirates | 15.2 | 5.7 | 12 |
Tigers players have accumulated 17.6 Box-Toppers points this season and remain atop team rankings after only earning 2.5 Box-Toppers points during the past week.
The Tigers are 15-8 (.652). The three other teams that have better records:
- St. Louis Cardinals: 15-6 (.714). With 17.2 Box-Toppers points, they are third in team rankings.
- Houston Astros: 15-7 (.682). With 17.4 Box-Toppers points, they are second in team rankings.
- Kansas City Royals: 15-7 (.682). With 16.5 Box-Toppers points, they are sixth in team rankings.
The Tigers are led by first baseman Miguel Cabrera (3.7 Box-Toppers points), pitcher David Price (2.7 points) and left fielder Yoenis Cespedes (2.7).
The Cardinals are the top National League team, displacing last week’s top NL team, the New York Mets. The Cardinals rose from sixth place among all teams to third this week with 17.2 Box-Toppers points, while the Mets rank fourth with 16.9.
The Cardinals are led by pitchers Adam Wainwright and Carlos Martinez, who each have 3.0 Box-Toppers points. However, Wainwright is out with an achilles injury for the remainder of the season.
It should be noted all teams in the top 10 are very close together in terms of Box-Toppers points—there is only a 2.4 Box-Toppers point difference between 10th place and first place. While the Cardinals have the best overall record, they are only one game ahead of Box-Toppers team ranking-leading Tigers. But the Tigers are only 0.4 Box-Toppers points ahead of the Cardinals—the equivalence of being less than half a game ahead. It is very early in the season, the sample size is very small.
The hottest team of the week is the Miami Marlins, gaining 8.5 Box-Toppers points during the past week. They rose from 29th in team rankings all the way to 12th place, with 13.7 Box-Toppers points.
Three teams rose onto the top 10 team list. In addition to the Astros, the other two were:
- The Chicago Cubs rose from 11th to eighth place with 15.5 Box-Toppers points.
- The Pittsburgh Pirates rose from 12th to 10th place with 15.2 Box-Toppers points.
Three teams correspondingly fell out of the top 10:
- The Toronto Blue Jays fell from seventh to 13th with 13.5 Box-Toppers points.
- The Oakland Athletics fell from fourth to 15th with 13.4 points.
- The San Diego Padres fell from ninth to 18th with 12.2 points.
The lowest ranked team of the week is again the Milwaukee Brewers with 6.2 Box-Toppers points.
About Box-Toppers—Box-Toppers tracks who most helps their team win the most games. Using standard box score statistics, Box-Toppers uses a simple formula to determine a Player of the Game for each Major League Baseball game played. That player is the person who contributed most to his team’s win. In regular season games, players earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point for being named Player of the Game and can earn bonus points for being Player of the Day or top player or batter in their league for the day.